Nokia Lumia 1320 review: Big screen, big price

With phablets refuelling the growth of smartphone market, it comes as no surprise that Nokia has joined the bandwagon with not one, but two big-screen handsets.

While Lumia 1520 is a high-end model, the recently unveiled Lumia is relatively more affordable with a price tag of Rs 23,999.

The big, big screen

The highlight of Lumia 1320 is its 6-inch screen, which is pretty good by any measure. The screen has 720p resolution and features Nokia's ClearBlack Display technology and this combination works pretty well despite not offering 1080p. The colours look vibrant and saturated, with pretty crisp images and videos. You may notice a little pixilation, but only if you are reading ebooks from a very close distance.

Lumia 1320's screen is, in fact, very good. We enjoyed the excellent contrast levels, great viewing angles and above-par sunlight legibility that it offers. The 6-inch panel is great for watching videos as well as reading ebooks and web pages.

Design
Nokia has been a little unimaginative with the looks of Lumia 1320. Basically, it looks like an oversized Lumia 625. It has the same curvy body as Lumia 625 and seems merely bigger in size; if you looked at the two models from afar, you will probably not be able to tell the two apart.

The big screen makes the phablet too big to handle. Though the curved body helps the handset slip into the pocket easily, it is a little difficult to hold because of the considerable width (3.4-inch). It is quite heavy too, weighing over 200gram.

The key placement in the phone remains the same as other Lumia models. Below the screen are the standard Windows Phone keys - Back, Start and Search. On the sides are the Volume Rocker, Power/Lock and Camera keys.

We did have one problem with the design though. While connecting the charger with the phone, we accidentally pressed the Camera key many, many times. In trying to hold the phone firmly in order to plug in the charger at the microUSB port (located at the bottom), this became nearly unavoidable.

Software

Like other Nokia smartphones, Lumia 1320 runs on Windows Phone 8 operating system. The device comes preloaded with the recent Black and slightly older GDR3 updates. Both these updates make Windows Phone 8 a slightly better operating system, bringing features like true multitasking, more control over how the device behaves; better Glance Screen interface etc.

The user interface has been tweaked to accommodate more Live Tiles on this phablet's big screen. Just like Lumia 1520, this model can also have up to six small Live Tiles on the home screen, up from four in other WP8 smartphones.

However, Windows Phone still lacks two key features - a well-stocked app store and a notifications menu. The former is a work in progress and will take some time in order to be on par with Apple's App Store and Google's Android Play Store, while the latter is under development and expected to be rolled out in April.

However, one can get several good Android smartphones priced around Rs 24,000, giving access to a vast number of cool apps. Havinf said that, if you are not fussy about specific apps, you can look at this phone.

Camera
One of the biggest problems we saw with Lumia 1320 is the camera. We are unable to understand why a company like Nokia, which has a great pedigree of cameraphones, would use a 5MP camera in a handset costing Rs 24,000! Using this camera made some sense in a low-priced device like Lumia 625 (available at approximately Rs 16,000 online), but in a rather high-priced model, it simply seems baffling.

That apart, we took some photos with Lumia 1320. The camera quality is below par; it loses much of the details in the background with softness of colours. Even the object in focus seems a little grainy in photos taken indoors, though performance - naturally - improves when it comes to outdoor clicks. Contrast levels are good and colours are saturated and well-balanced.

Considering it is a 5MP camera, Lumia 1320 does well in the imaging department. But it should not be in this department at all given the price tag.

Performance
Compared to other similarly-priced smartphones, Nokia Lumia 1320 feels quite fast and runs smoothly. Powered by the dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 chipset with 1GB RAM, the device packs enough punch to handle all the apps in the Windows Phone ecosystem. We never experienced any lag or other such problems during the review period.

In any case, WP8 is a smooth-running platform because of optimal resource utilization all round, so we didn't expect anything less from this device.

The speaker is positioned on the back and delivers acceptable sound quality, but not enough to make the music-playing experience enjoyable.

Battery life is something that Lumia 1320 can boast of. It runs on a 3,400mAh battery, which lasts nearly two days with moderate use. Even if you turn up the brightness to the maximum and use Wi-Fi and 3G constantly, the phablet won't run out of juice after a whole day. This is one feature that most Android smartphones, and none of the major rivals at this price point, can match.

Rivals
The problem with Lumia 1320 is that most Android smartphones in this price range, for example Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 and Google Nexus 4, perform better. This makes Lumia 1320 an also-ran in this race, something we would not recommend at Rs 24,000.

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is another new device in the market and has many more advantages over Lumia 1320. It has access to all Android apps, comes with a (big enough) 5.25-inch screen and a sufficiently powerful processor. At around Rs 22,000, it is definitely a better buy.

Nexus 4 is hard to find in the market today, but still a good device to have. It remains relevant in the time of Snapdragon 800-touting beasts and is worth the price tag of Rs 25,000 it commands.

At this price, you can also get Samsung Galaxy S3, which remains a decent - if older - smartphone. It offers a much superior camera and access to all your favourite apps. You will, however, lose out on the Lumia 1320's big-screen experience with this model.

iPhone 4 at Rs 23,000 is another option, but we would not recommend it since the limited hardware does not allow it to make full use of the iOS 7 animations. Moreover, it has a very small screen and there have been reports of the new software weighing down the model's performance. Though it brings the Apple iOS capability to you at almost half the price of iPhone 5S, but is still not recommended.

If you add another Rs 5,000, you can get your hands on Google Nexus 5 - a much superior smartphone. Though its battery life and camera performance are not up to the mark, it is still the best smartphone at this price point.

Verdict
Nokia promises a big screen smartphone with good display quality with its Lumia 1320 and it delivers on that promise very well. The rich and vibrant display panel looks good, and the long, long battery life is an added advantage that any buyer would enjoy.

However, Lumia 1320 does not have much to offer apart from these two qualities. The camera quality and size and weight, and relatively high price tag, besides a limited app ecosystem, do not make it a good option. We would instead recommend Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 at this price or Google Nexus 5 if you are willing to loosen your purse strings a little more.